The country’s top court says scrubbing search results could be seen as a restriction on speech

TOKYO—Japan’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Alphabet Inc’s Google in a case brought by a man found guilty years ago of child-pornography charges who wanted articles about his arrest removed from Google searches.

The ruling, dated Tuesday and released Wednesday, didn’t directly address the “right to be forgotten,” which was established in the European Union by the EU’s top court in a 2014 ruling. But it did offer some of the...